Goss said that Islamic extremists are Ãexploiting the conflict in Iraq and fighters there represent a ¬potential pool of contacts à ® to build transnational terror groups. He said the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, hopes to establish Iraq as a safe-haven to bring about a final victory over the West.
("Similarly, we have concerns that the cost of an attack on Iraq would further undermine the economic condition of the United States, that attempts to cause regime change in Iraq would result in high casualties for both U.S. military personnel and Iraqi civilians, and that a unilateral attack on Iraq by the United States would inflame tensions in other nations and could increase the threat of terrorism against the United States." Representatives Barbara Lee, Cynthia McKinney, and Sharrod Brown, 2002
Goss also said that the intelligence community has yet to get to the à ¬end of the trail à ® of the nuclear black market run by disgraced Pakistani scientist, A.Q. Khan. He wouldn t rule out the possibility that organizations, rather than states, could obtain on nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. He called à à ¬potential Khans à ® a worry.
("The former senior American intelligence
official was equally blunt. He
told me, 'Khan was willing to sell blueprints, centrifuges, and the
latest in weaponry. He was the worst nuclear-arms proliferator in the
world and he
Ã
s pardoned
Ã
³with not a squeak from the White
House.'" Seymour
Hersh in the New Yorker)
And for good measure:
"In addition to possible ongoing guerrilla action by Saddam Hussein's supporters, American occupation forces would likely be faced with competing armed factions among the Sunni Arab population, not to mention Kurdish and Shiite rebel groups seeking greater autonomy. This could lead the United States into a bloody counterinsurgency war. Without the support of other countries or the UN, a US invasion could leave American forces effectively alone attempting to enforce a peace amid the chaos of a post-Saddam Iraq." The Nation, 2003
